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1:48 Westland Whirlwind


Dunny

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7 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

Hi Roger

No worries fella, I am glad that the reference was useful.  You have done a cracking job on the cockpit fella, it looks fantastic. 

Great work.

All the best

Chris

Thanks for the kind words Chris!

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Another quick update. I decided that the more I looked at the kit wheels I couldn't live with them, so I found these beauties on the Big H website:

 

s-l640.jpg

 

Sadly they didn't meet the minimum postage requirement so I 'had' to order Airfix' reissued Spitfire MkI. :banghead:

 

And a MkI Hurricane. :rage:

 

At least it's the BoB 80th Anniversary this year...

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

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9 minutes ago, Hewy said:

 The cockpit looks Good , a fine job roger

Thanks for the kind words Hewy!

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5 hours ago, Dunny said:

Another quick update. I decided that the more I looked at the kit wheels I couldn't live with them, so I found these beauties on the Big H website:

 

s-l640.jpg

 

Sadly they didn't meet the minimum postage requirement so I 'had' to order Airfix' reissued Spitfire MkI. :banghead:

 

And a MkI Hurricane. :rage:

 

At least it's the BoB 80th Anniversary this year...

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

Hi Roger 

The Classic Airframes kit has the same issue and so I had to get some replacement wheels too.  A good excuse to get the extra kits too.

Keep up the good work

Chris

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi all,

 

Made some good progress on the Whirlwind as I had a long weekend last weekend - nice! First up I had a look at the rear deck. As I wanted to show off all that scratchbuilt loveliness in the cockpit I wanted to have the canopy open. I therefore modified the cockpit rear deck to remove the canopy support flanges, which will be added to the canopy later using plastic card. Here's the original component mid-mod:

 

20200509-141954.jpg

 

And here it is painted in situ with the rollover brace added from brass tube:

 

20200509-151109.jpg

 

Next I turned to small transparent bits (or lack thereof - the antenna attachment point and wing position lights are completely omitted) :banghead:Here's the cutout for the antenna mount:

 

20200509-152057.jpg

 

Aaand with a piece of transparent sprue glued into position - this was then sanded and polished to shape.

 

20200509-154349.jpg

 

The same was done with the wing lights (these were also drilled and a red/green 'bulb' added to each - I'm quite pleased with the outcome (forgot photos - doh!) Next the wing-mounted radiators; to my eye they looked almost surface-mounted, so I removed the location detail and moved the radiators back by 2mm to make them look more bedded in - here mid-surgery:

 

20200509-155617.jpg

 

Final piece of jiggery-pokery was the wing roots. As pointed out by @B_Bogus  (thanks B-B!) Trumpy have kindly added wing root fillets where the wing should be butt-jointed to the fusleage. Here's a before and after:

 

20200510-105835.jpg

 

20200510-115023.jpg

 

Once that was done everything pretty much fell together, albeit with a little fettling around the nacelle-wing join to get them fitting nicely (before gluing, thankfully!) :phew: After a little putty & cleanup I missed a few photos, so here she is following painting, stencilling and gloss coat ready for the minor decals:

 

20200511-165055.jpg

 

20200511-165120.jpg

 

20200511-165247.jpg

 

On the home straight now - thanks for looking!

 

Roger

 

 

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13 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

Very nice work Roger, it looks lovely.  Great paintwork too.

Nearly there now fella.

All the best

Chris

Thanks Chris!

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Hi All,

 

Hope you are all staying safe! Made some good progress today. Here's the finished wing position light - I'm quite pleased with the effect for a first go (although macro photography is not kind!):

 

20200517-144721.jpg

 

For the open canopy I fabricated and drilled the deck sections from plastic card, painted and attached them as shown. I noted that there was a punch-out section on the canopy, so I added a spare decal  I had from an earlier Tamiya Spitfire MkI build (now there's a kit!). Unfortunately it doesn't photograph well but it's there, I promise!:whistle:

 

20200517-145021.jpg

 

Then it was adding the minor decals, flat coating, exhaust staining, fiddly bits, rigging with Uschi fine...

 

Aaaaand I'm calling her done. I've used the kit wheels at this stage as the Barracuda replacements are still snail mailing from the UK. I'll prob'ly post in RFI and then update once I've got the proper jobs in place. Here's a teaser shot:

 

20200517-140951.jpg

 

Don't look too closely at the checkerboard decal on the bullet fairing - it's ugly! :poop:

 

I've thoroughly enjoyed this as my first moderately complex scratchbuilding effort. For all its faults the Trumpeter kit fits together well, and I think the enhancements I've made have resulted in a pretty reasonable facsimile of a Whirlwind. Hope you've enjoyed it - thanks for looking,

 

Roger

 

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1 hour ago, bigbadbadge said:

Ooooooooo yes Roger that looks very nice indeed, your enhancements and corrections/detailing have really paid off, great work fella.

All the best

Chris

Cheers Chris - much appreciated. It wouldn't have been half as good without your valuable insight,

 

Many thanks,

 

Roger

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I really like the Whirlwind, especially as I believe they were used for some weird and wonderful armament trials (two-pounder guns rings a bell, for some reason!) and you've done a really grand job with this one.

10 hours ago, Dunny said:

...I added a spare decal  I had from an earlier Tamiya Spitfire MkI build (now there's a kit!). Unfortunately it doesn't photograph well but it's there, I promise!:whistle:

 

Also, sorry for the slight digression, but as a newbie, I've got my eye on a Tamiya Spit mk1 - would you recommend it?

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6 hours ago, jackroadkill said:

I really like the Whirlwind, especially as I believe they were used for some weird and wonderful armament trials (two-pounder guns rings a bell, for some reason!) and you've done a really grand job with this one.

Also, sorry for the slight digression, but as a newbie, I've got my eye on a Tamiya Spit mk1 - would you recommend it?

Thanks for the kind words @jackroadkill - they certainly were an unusual beast. As for the Tamiya kit - I would highly recommend it. It includes all PE & masking and the level of detail is superb - hope you enjoy it!

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

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